The undergraduate education program of nursing jointly held by Liaoning University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ara Institute of Canterbury Ltd., New Zealand after two times applications in about two years, was successfully approved by the Ministry of Education of China in March 2020. For details, please refer to “the Notice on Approving for Establishing Chinese-Foreign Cooperatively-run Programs in the second half of 2019” (JWH No.7/2020) issued by the Ministry of Education.
In 2018, Liaoning University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ara Institute of Canterbury Ltd. began to prepare relevant application materials for the undergraduate education program of nursing. With the high attention of the leaders of both parties, the two parties actively explored and discussed on the Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run school, program enrolment plan, training plan, education and teaching plan, textbook quotation and selection, and teacher allocation, and actively and steadily promoted the process of cooperation. In 2019, the presidents of both parties signed a Cooperation Agreement, which further consolidated the foundation of the cooperation between both parties. Both parties applied for the undergraduate education Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run program of nursing in April and November 2019 respectively. After repeated modifications and improvement, several drafts were changed, and finally, it was successfully approved.
The nursing specialty of Liaoning University of Traditional Chinese Medicine was founded in 1984, with more than 2100 current undergraduate students. Gratifying achievements have been made in specialty construction, discipline construction, teaching reform, and talent training. Jobs for graduates are mainly for tertery general hospitals inside and outside Liaoning province. Ara Institute of Canterbury Ltd., formerly known as Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, was founded in 1906. In 2016, with the leading support of the New Zealand government, Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology and Aoraki Polytechnic merged to form a government-owned and the largest (class 1, the highest level) application-oriented institute in the South Island of New Zealand. In terms of the number of students, the employment rate of graduates, and the level of teaching facilities, its nursing specialty ranks first among the similar specialties in New Zealand universities and institutes.
The successful approval of the Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run program of nursing has realized the strong combination of the nursing specialty of both parties. Relying on the high-quality resources of both parties, this specialty will become an important base for the cultivation of international talents in this field, and more international nursing talents with cross-cultural cooperation ability and international vision will be jointly cultivated in the future.